The most mysterious question in human history is how did evolution create a species so different from all others? The greatest minds, including Darwin, could not give a comprehensive scientific explanation of how our ancestors managed to make the way from gathering monkeys to modern man, composing symphonies, reciting poetry, and inventing unique technologies. There is an insurmountable gulf between our cognitive abilities and achievements and the corresponding abilities of other species. Was it possible that human culture was able to develop from the social learning and traditions that we observe in other animals? How were our minds, intellect, and language formed? Summing up the results of many years of research in his laboratory, Professor of Behavioral and Evolutionary Biology Kevin Leyland answers these questions, bringing us closer to unraveling the mystery of human cognition and the mind. The development of our mental abilities, much more than climate, predators or diseases, was influenced by the conditions that developed due to activity our ancestors, driven by learning and social transmission. The human mind is not just shaped by culture, it is itself shaped by culture. And in order to understand the evolution of cognition, we must first comprehend the evolution of culture, since for our ancestors - and perhaps only for them - it was culture that changed the evolutionary process. For whom For biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, cultural scientists, teachers and students of these specialties, and also for anyone interested in the latest achievements of scientists in the field of evolutionary biology. In fact, many animals are incredibly inventive, but the scale of this ingenuity went unnoticed until recently for one simple and obvious reason: in order to classify a behavior as new, you need to understand what kind of behavior it is or another type is the norm. Only after a long study of capuchins in the wild were experts able to claim that the first recorded use of a club to attack a snake could truly be regarded as an innovation. Likewise, only decades of close observation of chimpanzees gave primatologists the basis to classify as a genuine innovation the outlandish courtship ritual, during which a teenager named Shadow tried to impress females by slapping his inverted upper lip against his own nostrils. The adult females whom he tried to seduce were dominant for him and responded to ordinary advances with aggression, and with the help of a non-standard maneuver, Shadow was able to express his sexual interest without militant overtones.